What You Know Now
by Sarah Ellens
Summary: In the drunken, hazy state he had been in since his fourth shot of tequila, the love of your life sounded more like a threat than a picture of eternal happiness. [oneshot]


Kind of has spoilers, if you haven't seen any of the second season. Which, if you haven't, seriously? Stop reading fanfic and go download it!

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"_Derek, have you ever thought that even if I am Satan and an adulterous bitch, that I still might be the love of your life?"_

In the drunken, hazy state he had been in since his fourth shot of tequila, the love of your life sounded more like a threat than a picture of eternal happiness. As if it actually meant that the cosmic forces of the universe had pooled together and decided, Derek Shepherd, this is the amount of love you are allotted in your life, and we are bequeathing it to you in the form of Addison Forbes Montgomery-Shepherd.

It might include a few whirlwind years of bliss and then too many more years of insincere indifference. It might now include moments where you forget about the void in your marriage and remember when _you_ were just interns, spending late nights studying together in the on-call room, but those will pass when you are reminded of traitorous best friends and why you came to Seattle in the first place.

It will most likely include tense marriage counseling sessions, fights over cooking trout inside the trailer versus outside, and long nights on opposite sides of the bed. It will definitely include snappy, passive-aggressive one-liners and stilted silences.

It might include midnight visits to _her_ house after she's been in the same room as a bomb and you just need a quick glance to know that yes, she's still whole, solid, standing there talking to you, because you thought maybe your heart would explode too. But it might also include listening just-as-a-friend to admissions of breaking other boys' hearts and playful morning walks in the park with the dog you somehow share. And that's just if you're lucky.

It will not include breakfasts of cold pizza and muesli with her roommates, stolen kisses in elevators, or tiny, ineffectual fists. It will certainly no longer include the scent of lavender conditioner and ratty Dartmouth shirts.

At least not anymore.

"_I… I slept with George."_

"Joe," he called. "Tequila. Please. Dear God, please."

He noted dimly how pathetic he sounded, but dismissed the thought as quick as it came. Addison was on-call tonight and it wasn't like he had anyone else to go home to. No one would ever know.

"Tequila, man?" Joe asked suspiciously, bringing over the bottle. "That's not exactly your usual."

"I thought it was obvious," Derek replied dryly. "Why, I mean. Why I am drinking tequila. Do you remember the first time I came in this bar, Joe? Because I do. And that, my friend, is why I am drinking tequila."

Joe rolled his eyes. "I remember everything," he replied, graciously setting the bottle down in front of his customer. "Get me when you're done and I'll call you a cab, Shepherd."

Derek mumbled a thank you and expertly poured another shot. Amazing. He was that drunk and his hands weren't shaking a bit. Benefit of being a neurosurgeon, he mused. He downed his glass and shuddered involuntarily. Ugh. He didn't even like tequila. Oh, well.

He returned to brooding. He'd thought he'd hit rock bottom back in Manhattan, walking in on the two people he'd trusted the most.

But this.

_"If I tell you what I did, you have to react like you're my friend, not my not-friend."_

This was coming a close second. Of course, he'd known she was having sex. Lots and lots of sex, he thought darkly. After all, he'd met the guy she'd wound up sending to the hospital. But now she'd broken someone else, and it was worse than a spinal tumor, if that was even possible. He couldn't fix this for her with anesthesia and a scalpel.

It wasn't simply knowing someone else got to hold her, touch her, be with her that was causing him to drink himself stupid. It was the knowledge of something else, something he'd done, something he didn't have an answer for.

He was, after all, a surgeon. A perfectionist. A realist. Someone who liked things black and white. Each procedure had a list of steps, things to cross off your list and know you were doing the right thing. What he had done lived in that vast gray area that he hated. Where there were no easy answers, no simple solutions.

He'd broken her like she'd broken George.

That hurt worst of all.


End file.
